Dead man walking
AN AMERICAN who disappeared more than 20 years ago and was eventually declared dead - but has now turned up alive - has been told by the authorities that as far as they're concerned he's still dead. So he can't have a driver's licence.
Donald Miller Jr vanished from a small town in Ohio in 1986 after he lost his job and turned to alcohol. He was declared dead in 1994. But now he's turned up again and wants a driver's licence and reinstatement of his social security.
But when he went to court over it, the judge turned the application down, saying there was by law a three-year time limit on the reversal of a finding of death.
"We've got the obvious here - a man sitting in the courtroom who appears to be in good health. I don't know where that leaves you, but you're still deceased as far as the law is concerned."
So, why not drive without a licence? What can they do to a dead man? Hey, there could be all kinds of benefits here. Heave a brick through the mayor's window if you feel like it. Proposition any good-looking bird you want. Go on the razzle. Who ever heard of a dead man being had for crimen injuria or being drunk and disorderly.
And look at the tax benefits. Er no, here I'm afraid we hit the buffers. The taxman would actually relish getting cash out of a corpse.
Nuptial celebrations
THE ABOVE recalls a case in Maritzburg many years ago when a pal of mine had been given the responsibility to drive the bridesmaids to a wedding. He'd been celebrating the nuptials even before they had been embarked upon and unfortunately, on his way to pick up the bridesmaids, at an intersection he collided with a hearse.
When the driver of the hearse got out, he was totally legless.
In the subsequent court case the police officer, describing the condition of the two drivers, said: "The only sober person on the scene was the corpse."
On our guard
STANLEY Fraser reflects in verse on the way things are today.
Tried to buy a celphone yesterday
Rica stopped me in my tracks.
'Why all this?' I ask, with some dismay.
'Oh, to stop terrorist attacks.'
But White Widow got a passport,
Lived in Jo'burg, never caught,
So you think she never had a cellphone then?
He shifts into blank verse for that last line, which is quite effective.
Solar power
SEEN on a T-shirt at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar receptor for a sex machine …"
Noo Yawk
LIFE in New York can be fraught. Michel Pierre has to flush the loo from a distance with a rope, while he hides behind the bathroom door.
Reason? The toilet exploded while he was checking the water pressure in his apartment, knocking him unconscious. He needed 30 stitches in his face, arms and legs when he came round.
It appears to be something to do with an airlock after the water in the apartment block had been turned off for a time.
It's the American Dream.
Stowaways
WE OFTEN hear of cats crawling into car engines for a snooze, then being driven vast distances before getting out. In Australia the same thing has happened with a duck-billed platypus.
No, the platypus didn't crawl in for a snooze on the warm engine block the way a cat does. In this case Cameron Blaseotto somehow scooped it up when he drove his truck into a flooded creek at Canberra, Australia's federal capital.
When he arrived at a friend's house 15km away and switched off, a scratching sound came from under the bonnet. When he opened up, there was the young female platypus, unharmed.
The parks people were called in and the platypus – now named Hilux after the make of the truck - was released into a stream.
What next under Aussie car bonnets? Wombats? Koalas? Wallabies? Saltwater crocodiles? Julia Gillard?
Tailpiece
I HAD a ploughman's lunch yesterday. The blighter punched me.
Last word
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
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